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LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIE
- Subject: LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIE
- From: tun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 16:46:00
Subject: LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIES TO MYANMAR
Cc: reg.burma@xxxxxxx
(th)
By ANDREA ADELSON
c.1994 N.Y. Times News Service
Liz Claiborne Inc., one of the nation's largest apparel makers,
has decided to stop making and buying apparel in Myanmar, formerly
known as Burma, because of its authoritarian government.
Liz Claiborne buys goods from 40 countries, and knits and woven
apparel from Myanmar represented less than 1 percent of its volume,
a company spokeswoman said. Its announcement would thus seem to be
largely symbolic.
Liz Claiborne does considerably more business with China, which
has also been the subject of human rights complaints, but has no
plans to examine its commitments there.
Other American companies have withdrawn from Myanmar. Levi
Strauss & Co. stopped buying clothes made there in 1992 after
learning that the military junta owned an interest in the
factories. Amoco Corp. pulled out last April, citing economic
reasons.
In a statement Friday, Jerome A. Chazen, Liz Claiborne's
chairman, said: ``Though the facilities with which we work have
complied with our strict human rights standards, we cannot support
the activities of this country's current government.''
The spokeswoman said Chazen was not available to take questions.
The Liz Claiborne announcement could depress Myanmar's apparel
industry, said Andrew Jannis, president of the Marketing Management
Group, an apparel industry consultant.
``A lot of importing is about networking,'' he said. ``When a
company like Claiborne abandons a location, it might have a very
adverse affect on sourcing.''
Myanmar, with 43 million people, is controlled by a government
that seized power in 1988 and has a record of human rights abuses.
The leader of the main opposition party, the Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest. The opposition
party in exile, saying foreign investment props up the regime, has
called for a trade boycott.
About 10 American companies have invested $300 million in
operations in Myanmar since 1988, said Kenneth A. Bertsch, an
analyst at the Investor Responsibility Research Center.
Pepsico Inc., which has a minority interest in a bottling
operation in Myanmar, and Unocal Corp., which plans a $1 billion
offshore pipeline, in the last few weeks have received shareholder
resolutions aksing them to end their operations there, company
officials said Friday.
Most of the other American companies with ties to Myanmar may
well receive related resolutions, said Sister Valerie Heinonen,
program director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate
Responsibility, a group of religious investors with $35 billion in
assets. The companies include the Limited, Pier 1 Imports, Atlantic
Richfield Co., Texaco and Halliburton Co., she said.
Rather than an economic embargo, these resolutions ask companies
to disclose the extent of their operations in Myanmar and how they
intend to respond to human rights violations there, she said.